I enjoyed Dice's post so much I'm going to start up FF13 right now and play it.

(after I was the dishes)

omg, I need this to be real after YEARS of our (rather tacky but talented) local jeweler having those but with either Christ, the Virgin, Elvis Presley, or Queen Elizabeth II on them... This changes everything

In celebration of the release of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII in Japan, Square Enix has revealed a launch trailer of sorts that captures the games characters and various locations in the world of Nova Chrysalia. The gameâ€™s developers used the in-game engine and assets to construct a brand new sequence that doesnâ€™t actually exist in the game proper.

"Lightning Returns will feature the original Japanese voice-overs available as free downloadable content (DLC) during the first two weeks of the game being on-sale, Square Enix revealed today. After this limited period, the Japanese Voice-Over Pack will be available as paid DLC â€“ although pricing on that specific item has yet to be announced.

The Japanese Voice-Over Pack also includes lip-synching that differs from the English-language voice track already included with the game, to ensure a more natural and localized game experience."

Some of the NPC's are looking....really low poly.... Square's PSP method is bleeding into their PS3 game here (high quality faces, low quality everything else).

I do still get floored by the monster designs though. I honestly still love when Behemoth launches himself into the screen. But otherwise it's interesting that my eyes have "gotten used to" PS3 graphics to finally find them old/dated looking. Still pretty, obviously, yet able to pick up on it.

The gameplay looks good, but some early impressions are saying even normal battles can take some time (I'm hoping this is because people are rushing and trying to finish the game than build Light's stats). Some are also bummed about the time mechanic, but that was an inevitability I think.

Still, I'm in Kyuu's boat: If it's fun, then I'm totally in.

It looks like, despite barely much mention in the previous titles, Bhuneveize is taking centre stage this time: Pseudo-Serah is probably his version of Chrono Cross' Harley if I had to guess.

I don't even care if the story is stupid, this game is FUN (demo-wise).

I know this is kind of a touchy subject for some fans, but in short to not make a huge deal out of this I would say that the story of XIII is sort of a convoluted J-drama that takes time to grow on you.

...which in retrospective is almost the same description I would give to VIII.